I have really been slacking on my blogging lately. Along with daily life, some sewing projects, trying to enjoy some of the nice weather, the last few weeks have been very busy -- mostly good busy so I thought I would share pictures. Right after Easter, my cousin Trish and her kids came down to visit for the day. Christian and Amelia are birthday twins as so we wanted to get the kids together shortly after their birthday and get some pictures. Here's my two favorites - but I'm hoping Trish got better pictures, because the shadows on this one are bad. : Then there a couple pics of my sweet Amelia, who is just getting more precious.... and active every day. Yes, she is officially walking -- really walking, not just a few steps, she only crawls as a last resort. She's so cute with her little swaggering walk and you can tell she is really proud of herself.
We also celebrated my Dad's 50-10th birthday. :) We spent the afternoon at the park having a picnic and letting the kids play. As you can see, even the big kids had fun -- yes that's my dad, sliding down the twisty slide on his 60th birthday. And here's a couple pics of Isabella and my nephew Garrett -- I had to post the silly one of Garrett because it is so Garrett and it cracks me up.
(you might have to click on it to get the full effect of his little bug eyed look) Too funny -- these two are such good buddies!
Then last week my mom and I (along with my girls) took a quick trip up to see family. My aunt has been going through chemotherapy again and I've been wanting to get up there to see her. I figure my girls can always give an extra boost of cheer and sunshine, right? :) It was actually way too quick of a trip, but since her chemo is on Friday - we didn't want to go up during the weekend. And my mom had to get back to work so we had to make it quick. We travelled up Wednesday and came back Thursday afternoon. Here's a cute picture of my girls sleeping together there. But don't let these sweet sleeping girls
fool you, most of the night was not like this. As I have mentioned countless times, Amelia LOVES her crib, and isn't so crazy about change, so she wasn't thrilled about being in a strange place in her pack and play. She did ok for her naps, but Wednesday night both of the girls were sleeping when I got to bed, then around 2 am Amelia woke up crying and wouldn't calm down -- which my sweet girl works herself up into a tizzy and gives herself diarrhea. My mom came in and got Isabella, so I could just keep Amelia in bed with me. This is what she was wanting - out of the pack and play with mommy, but she doesn't enjoy it at all. Unlike Isabella who will just quickly go to sleep next to me, Amelia was so fidgety trying to get comfortable. Then around 3am, I hear Isabella crying that she wants her mommy. Which I have to admit makes me feel good. She comes down the hall with my mom saying "I want to cuddle with my mommy" -- so now there are 3 of us in a double bed or at least 2 1/2, because I think half of my body was off the bed. :) For the rest of the night, I pretty much didn't sleep. Amelia would fidget, lay on top of me, sit up, pat my face, lean over and give me kisses (I know, how sweet!) Then Isabella would wake up and say "Cuddle, cuddle" and want me to put my arm around her. Plus, I had started having problems with my sinuses so I was awake with that as well. And all that complaining to actually say, when I got up in the morning and saw my two sweet girls cuddled together next to me, I had to take a picture of them and think how precious it is to have my two girls sleeping next to me (and then hope that it doesn't happen again anytime soon. :) It was nice to visit and see my aunts, uncle, and cousins, especially since my girls hadn't been up there since August --but definitely too quick. And if you think of it, please continue to pray for my aunt, my parents went up again this week so my dad could go to the drs appointment with her and he seemed encouraged by what the dr had to say. I obviously don't know God's ultimate will in her life, but I know that He is faithful and good. I am still praying for His healing because I know He is the only one that can heal and I'm also praying that He will be glorified through all of this!! I know that she is a testimony to so many around her, so I pray that He will continue to strengthen and encourage her. Can't promise my blogging will be much better --- we don't have a free weekend until June so the next month will be busy as well. Once again, it should all be a good busy so I'm sure at some point I will have lots more pictures to share!
Here's some Easter pics of the girls -- the one on my parents couch is the best of them, but not a good background. The ones outside are prettier in the grass, but the shadows are bad and I can't seem to get a good picture of my girls together -- one is cute of Isabella, but not Amelia, the other is cute of Amelia, but not Isabella. I guess that's the way it goes with more than one child in a picture. :)I had planned on taking them somewhere with lots of flowers on Saturday to take pictures, but the weather here was SO cold!! I will definitely be doing this in the future! It looks like it was pretty on Easter, but it was very cold, I had to get little cardigans for my girls because, of course, their dresses were made for spring, not winter weather. Its so interesting taking pictures of kids, We had a nice Easter. We had an Easter egg hunt and we colored eggs on Saturday. On Sunday we had a good service at church. We actually had 13 baptized. When I tell people that they say they think its crazy that we had a baptismal service on Easter, but I thought it was great -- what a great way to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on Easter. Our pastor hadn't really expected it to be so many when he planned this, we had a couple boys saved through Awana a few weeks ago and planned it after that, then we had more saved through Awana, some kids who had gotten saved at camp and wanted to be baptized, 1 teen and 2 adults so by last week the count was up to 13. It was great! Of course I loved dressing my girls up for Easter as well. Its so fun to see them all dressed up in springy colors. I know some people think that buying new dresses (although Amelia's actually was a hand me down from Isabella - poor 2nd child -- her hat was new though :) is too materialistic for a holiday celebrating Christ, but my mom talks about how her dad, my Pap-Pap as we called him, liked for them to dress up on Easter. He said it was a great way to symbolize the ressurection and our salvation --"putting off the old man and putting on the new" -- I like that. I think that will be a great illustration to use for my girls as they get older. Although Isabella still doesn't understand all about the reason for Easter, she was cute when we asked her what Pastor had taught them on Sunday morning. When he had the kids up front before Children's Church, he had some eggs (kind of like the resurrection eggs, but only 3) he had a rock in one for the stone, a piece of cloth in the other (the kids totally didn't get this one) and nothing in the last one. He went through and explained them to the kids and at dinner when we asked Isabella what she learned she said "About a rock, and then nothing was there" She might not understand, but at least she was listening. :) I hope all of you had a great Easter as well!! 
